Herschell Gordon Lewis debates the disadvanges of opening the floodgates to social media.

The social medium MySpace had a good year. It lost only US$128 million last year. That’s only $28 million more than it lost the previous year.

The owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, isn’t happy. His pioneer social medium, once dominant, has lost ground against principal competitors Facebook and the micro-blogger Twitter. So, the announced ‘rebuilding’ plan for 2010 is to establish online communities structured on music, video and games. The chief operating officer of News Corp, Murdoch’s corporate identity, is quoted as saying: “We’re not trying to compete with Facebook or beat Twitter. We’re trying to create a unique experience.”

See anything here?

‘Social’ can be too social

When email became a factor in the marketing universe, we direct marketers quickly seized the medium to our bosoms. Smart move.

Then came Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and Plaxo and LinkedIn and we direct marketers quickly added those. Oops – maybe not so smart.

The ‘That which is announced as new equals that which is better’ cult has prevailed, ignoring the spotty history of innovations. That’s the tightrope we walk: Our mantra should be, ‘That which is announced as new may be that which is better’.

We might avoid being misled or hoodwinked or naïve, without totally rejecting a concept or a means of communication just because it’s different from one with which we’re comfortable.

Am I anti social media? No. Well, partly. I favour any interpersonal communications that don’t insult the recipient, even if the message is larded with stupidity. I don’t favour any communications tool that enables the recipient to seize control of the message.

Even in the short lifetime of Twitter, we’ve seen business enterprises suffer damage at the hands – make that fingertips – of ‘followers’ (I detest that appellation) who, in their own ego-driven madness, attempt to organise a detestation campaign against a product or service.

We’re wallowing in a populist sea and losing control of our own instruments is beyond our capability if such circumstance happens without our unwitting participation.

If it happens because we’ve opened a floodgate, culpability is ours.

A two-edged sword

One of the many companies offering Twitter marketing assistance uses this sales argument:

“Once you follow these targeted users, they will come to your twitter profile page to review who you are. They will review your twitter bio, your web link and your recent ‘tweets’ to see what you are all about.

“If they like you, and you have the same interests, about 30% to 50% will follow you back. Once they follow you back, all your tweets will appear on that users twitter page for everyone to see!”

The missing apostrophe in ‘user’s’ and the plural/singular mismatch are theirs, not mine. We aren’t involved in another marketer’s missing apostrophe. We are involved in our own marketing self-traps. Opening the door for what appears on any user’s Twitter page is a two-edged sword.

A mild misstep can result in our having to apologise for a mistake we didn’t make.

That’s what can happen when we make it possible for the inmates to run the asylum.